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Hello all, Few days ago, I discovered VUE and I was fascinated by the visual interface.

I have put VUE to a totally different use as a workspace for Creative Problem Solving facilitation tool and interface. Thus, I use a node to capture an idea in the same way I would do it on a sticky note. Once I have many nodes (ideas) VUE's interface for manipulating, clustering, duplicating nodes, etc.. is incredible.

In this context, it would be great if multiple poeple could imput nodes (ideas simultaneously into gthe same map.

Thanks in advance,

Diego Uribe International Center For Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State College

I would second this request. Idea generation is best done when shared and I'm guessing there is a need for collaboration in most VUE installations.

One possible direction is to go the Google Doc route, where the newly developed applet can be used to access a persistent online database, and all access are online.

Another direction is to piggyback on versioning with some type of "smart merge". In this mode, users can check-in changes into a central repository (intranet or internet), and other can check out. A very simple instantiation may be possible that can cover 90% of the cases (the rest 10% can get hairy).

With something like this, the utility of VUE can be taken to a new level.

I agree with the comment about CmapTools. It has a very good Tomcat application server map publishing method and good shared real-time whiteboard feature.
- The ability to just copy a concept map from your desktop to the application server and have the map automatically assigned a URL for web browsing is simplicity at its finest.

Thanks, A H.
We have in fact, been working with Diego (the originator of this post), to provide a real-time collaboration add-on to VUE. It is still in prototype phase, and whether or not we have the chance to include this in a future build is still up in the air. But our add-on does exactly what Diego initially envisioned.

I work as a theoretical neuroscience researcher, building models of the interactions of various brain components to describe the biological and neural mechanisms underneath behavior. The ultimate goal of such research is to, e.g., quantitatively predict the positive and negative impacts of various pharmaceutical treatments on a behavioral condition.

Developing appropriate models requires integration of knowledge from experts in anatomy, neuropharmacology, biophysics, neural network theorists, behavioral experts, general neuroscientists, etc. In the past, I have constructed networks and accounted for evidence by laboriously educating myself in all the necessary topics from the literature. The process takes months of non-stop, tedious, methodical work and as a non-expert in each field, my analysis of these results as they relate to the larger system is prone to error. Ideally, one would be able to collect the experts themselves somewhere in space and/or time, hand them a collaborative version of VUE, explain the purpose and say "go!", allowing each expert to flesh out their specific neighborhood in the larger theory. A development paradigm along these lines would hopefully ensure greater accuracy of the interaction model and lead to quantitative, mathematical modeling much faster.

The process described above, allowing teams of experts to contribute their specific area knowledge to a wide-ranging theory of a system, is an easily generalizable paradigm applicable to many scientific disciplines seeking to develop large scale models.

Some members of the research consortium I am attempting to join already favor VUE software, and the consortium endeavors to build models of interactions across an even greater range of biology and behavior than I describe above. Hence, my keen interest in the health and vitality of this capability!

Just to follow up on your post, the collaboration prototype we've built is really more of a meeting facilitation model where one vue user is the moderator of content submitted to the map by many other users. I think we'll be able to better articulate what we're hoping to do in the fall.

Thanks for the feedback we'll certainly consider this type of need if we are able to move forward to do more with collaboration, its bit uncertain what we'll be able to do at the moment.

Diego Uribe wrote:Hello all,
Few days ago, I discovered VUE and I was fascinated by the visual interface.

I have put VUE to a totally different use as a workspace for Creative Problem Solving facilitation tool and interface. Thus, I use a node to capture an idea in the same way I would do it on a sticky note. Once I have many nodes (ideas) VUE's interface for manipulating, clustering, duplicating nodes, etc.. is incredible.

In this context, it would be great if multiple poeple could imput nodes (ideas simultaneously into gthe same map.

Thanks in advance,

Diego Uribe
International Center For Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State College

A. H. has a great use for the a group map add-on. --

I feel slightly that for as a layman non scientists Vue is as Diego has said: is a creative problem solving facilitation tool.

*
Each time I 'finish' a idea, - and i FEEL myself jump into a separate concept. - I can show that it is a slightly separate step or evolution from the through before it. (Each sequential bubble then offers a chance to brach off and go in different directions, while a preserved tree of thought is recorded.--
*

BY SEEING WHEN exactly I COMPLETE an idea and am free to (new) something happens i can't put into words at this time.
___________________links to your response_____

(People- in an online version where other people add, (a new layer?) and make the links=new ideas that your mind is blocking out. has a lot of appeal.

Perhaps, there is one thing that at this moment we can't do (tell me if I'm wrong). We are using mostly Zotero to build our map, we created a group in Zotero to share our data. To use VUE we have to create a new library (a copy of our group library) and we can only save our map in our own library not in the group.

It would be amazing if we were able to use our group to create and save our map. We would then be able to work all together with the same database.

I don't think zotero would allow writing the map to a Group Library from my understand, I could be wrong. But I agree it would be useful to be able to use a group to create a map. Unfortunately, the group library feature in zotero came after we'd already done most of our development on that feature so we didn't get around to adding it, it wouldn't be exceedingly difficult to do at some point though.

Perhaps, there is one thing that at this moment we can't do (tell me if I'm wrong). We are using mostly Zotero to build our map, we created a group in Zotero to share our data. To use VUE we have to create a new library (a copy of our group library) and we can only save our map in our own library not in the group.

It would be amazing if we were able to use our group to create and save our map. We would then be able to work all together with the same database.

Thanks

Isn't it awesome when you first discover Vue? You just go wild. z:ef)
I've been ignoring these forums - my apologies-
Though Zotero needs to get their software over onto Google Chrome I think. - I think Zotero is the only thing I miss from Firefox. - but I like the speed better so z)

You could always get a big sheet of poster paper and sit down In Person! and draw bubbles all over it off of each other's bubbles. and have duck tape over all your mouths so you could only write down your thoughts for that meeting. :z) LoL
sorry wild imagionations can be temptations.
my map shows a different ... admittedly personal way to use Vue, instead of for greater group collaboration. -
Though everything is good!!
No one I work with likes or will use / get back to me with response maps or anything so F996 it depends on which environment you have. z)

VUE has allowed me to rapidly structure relationships, but I still resort to Post-its when a number of people are involved and then convert to VUE for latter structuring.

I have been playing with networked whiteboard type tools, it is very productive to be able to produce / annotate / revise a flip chart simultaneously with other people, however no tool seems to be quite right - often focused on special tasks (document review, drawing development etc.) or only gives crude output.

I was thinking that my ideal multiuser online mapping tool would be a cross of VUE with a simple Whiteboard applet (http://wbapplet.sourceforge.net/) or at least take the VUE code and the server side of wbapplet, the only addition I would like is to also capture the creator of each object in metadata.

The Whiteboard applet works by sending a description of each object that gets drawn on each connected computer to a central server ("simiply" PHP and MySQL), stores the objects in a database and then returns object descriptions for everything drawn on other computers. Each object gets a unique id, so you can undo your changes, as you are able to delete your objects unique ids. So I had simplistically imagined that with VUE as well as storing the drawing in the internal datastructures, each object drawn would be sent to the server and be given an id by the server, if this object is moved or changed, then it is deleted and recreated with a new id. The VUE screen drawing part is then accepting new input from both the local user and the network server to determine what is drawn on the screen. It would then be possible to save as a normal VUE document locally and take way for futher development.

As you can guess I am not really a programmer, so this hybridisation of VUE and wbapplet is probably not very simple and would require a rewrite of VUE, but if not it would be a fantastic tool.